Critique of view that Satan equals freedom
Thu, 2002-08-01 13:26
#1
Critique of view that Satan equals freedom
I was interested in this piece, partly because it conflicts with my own views, and thus want to draw people's attention to it. Here are some matters over which myself and the author disagree (I do agree, however, with the initial premise - Satan does not equal freedom. They are two not unrelated but also not interchangable concepts.)
"To say being evil is being free is to justfuy evil abuses and misery cvommiited gaisnt the vulnrble which is simply wrong."
The logic makes no sense. Why does the statement, however erroneous, justify, specifically, evil abuses and misery committed against the vulnerable? It simply supposes that we cannot have freedom without evil, and that evil is therefore necessary.
"Anger, God, Messiah etc: generally indicate goodness."
Now on this I must put my heel down quite violently. Anger is goodness?? Insanity - anger is, if anything, the method with which the devil lures us into bloody confrontation. It's natural, and very difficult to avoid - but it is in direct opposition to positive progression and solutions.
"Morality is ameans of giving peopel freedom from abuse."
To hell with this as well. Morality today is an artform mastered by politicians and others who wish to persuade without logic. Simply paint your enemies "evil", "sick" or any number of lesser terms of abuse, and voila, you have stirred up people's emotions against them. You don't need moral codes to be kind, generous or forgiving (indeed, morality seems to be against such things,) or to solve any kind of crisis. If there is any solution, it can be arrived at through insight and understanding of the peoples involved.
"To say you don't believe in good and evil is like saying there is no such thing as capitalism."
No, it's like saying you don't believe in capitalism. Which one might not, since it could cynically be said to be simply anarchism with lip service paid to law and order.
"Lucifer is evil and no one hsould have any sympathy with him or her."
That is simply using his own tactics against him, which is hardly appropriate, since everything he does must be evil.
"He is the fictional represenation of evil people."
After talking about dangerous statements, my friend comes out with this. Deadly stuff, and incorrect. Lucifer is the representation of evil IN people, not evil people. People are people, and it is their actions that are evil. To say that there are simply evil people is to fool yourself with black and white views - because, as was said in another topic, the nice, friendly chap down the street simply CAN'T be a paedophile, can he, because he's not evil?
"Thta was because he took pleasuyre from absungio other people."
It is a very natural thing to take pleasure from abuse, even mild abuse. That's why it's such a temptation.
"For me i just use Satan as a fictional character as in my story the whole putpose of the sate is to evilvoe into an evil creature like the nazis they see good as a weakness to hate, and see us good people as weak idiots."
It's usually the very moral, fine and upstanding far right who see those inclined towards sympathy and understanding as "weak idiots."
"Morality has occured in reaction to the emotions and empthay for emotions people are capable of."
Perhaps that's how it came about, but it has since become a weapon of corrupt intentions.
"He does not represwent freedom."
The author is in a position to make Satan represent anything he wants.
"Freedom to be evil is merely evil and back to the days of evil abuse."
Back??
"Freddom to bee vil is not the sort of freedom anyone needs to suffer from."
We do, however, all suffer from it.
Sebastian
In defense of what I wrote originally there are a few things I think I should say because I think much of this is attributable to miss understandings and language games.
I did try to make clear in the piece "With sympathy for the devil" that Lucifer (importantly Lucifer as he was the fallen angel) was blamed for problems hence we saw him as a deliver of harm, it does not mean in any way, and I think this was a strange assumption to make, that I wished to suggest that harm was in anyway what was good.
Henstoat states that "Lucifer is the representation of evil IN people, not evil people. People are people, and it is their actions that are evil." that was irrelevant to what I was writing as that is the exact liberal view that I made clear early on was not the aim of my argument to disprove.
As for the remarks about Nietzsche in Mrrfsmith they are a classic miss reading. The Nazis' did not read Nietzsche but rather an edited a re-written text made after his death known as the "will to power". Nietzsche denies logic as we know it so when he speaks of reversing morality he does not refer to turning "Thou Shall not Kill" into "Thou Shall Kill" that wouldn't make any sense to him he is interested in denying that there can be such a command. He is suggesting that it always changes from time to time. I for one believe that in some cases such action would have to be thought of as acceptable. Nietzsche thinking is the basis of much modern liberalism and feminism for that reason.
It's also important to remember my piece is a "What if?" metaphor and not advocating of "sin".
RFSMITH
How is it dangerous to say that there are evil people. If someone supports capitlaism they are called a capitialist. You seem to think people become possessed by the devil and committ evil. Evil is an ideology people can be changed, but if you think good and evil exist then it is eithier peopel or some mystical force that causes these evils. For myslef I belieive it is just people who have views it isn't some mystical force If a person has evil views and committs evil. Then they're evil it is not that they have been possessed. No one would say Marx was not a communitst it was just he did coumminist things. No one would say Thacther was not a thacthetire it was just did Thatcherite htings.
No offence is meant my letter and many intelectuals have the same view as you but I can't understand moral the logic of it. I don't agree with you. Good and evil are the chief ideologies they are not forces or mystial demons or powers ove the univesere. It is not liberating peopel to be evil.
You are wonmr about that Nietzhie thingsa philospsher he was evil he wanted to kill all diasbled peopel and belived hewas doing an act of mercy as he felt they felt the way about thelves as he did about them. He was pure evil he wasn't a self help book writer he was pure evil.
Germiane Greer may agree with Nietz but that is why on may issues she is bullying snob. I support equality but not bullying, and abuse, anf other evils
Henstoat
Having read your original piece, I agree that Mrrfsmith has misunderstood and that the premise he argues against is not one you support. Yours is an excellent piece of philosophy, which I shall recommend here: With Sympathy For The Devil
I feel dear old Mrrfsmith has overreacted, and that he owes that overreaction to some fairly extreme, yet not unusual views on good and evil.
sirat
People, there is a whole area of philosophy called moral philosophy, and Neitzsche is only one person who has contributed to it. The idea of "morality" or moral behaviour comes from the notion of "mores", accepted ways of behaving. All social groups have them. They have changed and evolved all through human history, and are still very different from one group to another. In most cases they have been underpinned by religions or supernatural beliefs of one kind or another but since the ancient Greeks there have also been attempts to ground them in "reason", in facts about the kind of creatures we are and the kind of world we live in. We don't have the same "mores" as the Inuit people or the more extreme Islamic sects of the Middle East. What we have got is a moral code rooted principally in Judeo/Christian tradition but also incorporating a whole bunch of non-religious notions, like wages and economic relationships. It has had to be modified to allow things like Capitalism and liberalism to thrive (e.g usury can no longer be viewed as wrong, but slavery while once acceptable is now definitely unacceptable). What is morality? It's the set of rules that most of us think we ought to live by most of the time in this particular society and at this particular point in history. It was different yesterday and it will be different tomorrow. It doesn't carry the full consensus of all the people in the group (e.g. differing views about euthanasia, abortion, drug-taking, sexual practices) but it carries enough support to make it work and to make it in certain instances enforcable (try walking out of a big shop with something you haven't paid for). It's just the oil that keeps the social wheels turning. It isn't magical or mystical or absolute. It can't be investigated scientifically like the craters on the moon, it is something created, accepted and modified by human choice. There! Go away Lucifer, you aren't needed here.
Henstoat
Sorry - our replies criss-crossed, and I was replying to Sebastian.
Mr. Smith - it is dangerous to promote the idea of evil people because an evil person, were such a thing to exist, would be incapable of good. If you were to follow such logic, it leads tp the belief that people who do good are free from suspicion of evil actions, and we thereby let our guard down.
Let's use the character in your story as an example. You say early on that he hates his society, and the people in it. Do you honestly believe that, just because he is the 'good guy' of the story, his hatred is more justified and sane, less blinding even, than that of your evil characters. No - any hatred is, as Sebastian says, censorship of reason. If it is not an evil in itself, it is a prelude to evil.
Like you, I do not strictly believe in demons, but if we are talking of them as representative images, then I am perfectly right in referring to Lucifer as something that infests or possesses people. For if you are to believe in evil at all, you must believe it is a part of a man, a part that works primarily against his own welfare and that of others. The idea of possession is an apt metaphor for this.
Nietzche was not pure evil - if you believe that then it's as good as believing in the devil.
And please - be more careful in your typing. Consideration toward others and all that.
jon smalldon
Slightly on a tangent but:
Nietzsche was not pure evil. He was a deep-thinking philosopher whose works written before his mental breakdown challenge many assumptions about the way we think and our motives for our actions.
It's true that many of his statements have been misquoted and been used for sickening ideological purposes after his death.
There's a very good primer on him in the Very Short Introduction series by OUP by the way, should anybody be interested.
Henstoat
Sirat - I've heard much of moral philosophy from Dentalplan, and whilst I am quite happy to debate THAT kind of morality with him, the kind of morality I dislike, and the kind I will usually refer to, is the same kind people talk about when they accuse each other of being 'morally bankrupt.' The word here takes on the meaning of an absolute right, and is used primarily as a weapon with which politicians and tories verbally beat people. It is used as an excuse for scorn, contempt, anger, hatred, disgust and war - all very negative, unhelpful human traits that people take up and think perfectly righteous because they think morality, as it were, not only justifies them but makes them necessary, weapons of good even.
As for Lucifer, he makes, as I say, an apt metaphor for the very nasty and counter-productive actions and desires of people. Having said that, he's an interesting fellow who makes life more than a dull series of appropriate actions, and the world would be far, far more boring without him.
sirat
I completely agree on that last point. There's a great story about His Satanic Majesty that went in the other day and I tried hard to direct people to it but nobody showed much interest. have a look at this other Mr. Smith.
Sebastian
I really hope I don't get labeled a Satanist now LOL. Thank’s for your kind words Henstoat :o)
Henstoat
Woooow! That Mr. Smith story is fantastic! What a twist!
andrew pack
It occurs to me, given the other typos in the piece, that it might have been intended to be not "Anger, god, messiah" which makes little sense, but "Angel, god, messiah" which does.
Staying out of the debate about morals - I'm more interested in amoral people than good or evil.
sirat
Psychotics?
Henstoat
Surely not. I think I've decided that I'm an amoral person, although this will likely be contested, and I say it mainly to outrage a person I know who truly does believe that without morals I am a dangerous wildman. But I would say I form any principles I have from moral philosophy, which I say is a completely different thing and quite an individual thing. As for being generally nice to people and treating my acquaintances well - I'd say this is due to good fortune, and my being brought up by my parents to behave that way naturally and instinctively, without seriously thinking about whether such behaviour is 'right' or 'good'. If I'm a fine, upstanding citizen, then that is a coincidence.
RFSMITH
Utter rubbisah Nietzsche was the major philopsher ofg the NAZIs he was anit-sem,itcm, he belived whotes were the superio rerace. He was a German national;ist,. He wanted weka peopel kileld off. H
Henstoat
Slow down and type carefully.
Considering that you couldn't even spell his name right to begin with, and maintain that he belonged to the Nazis despite what has been said above, I can't see how you can even begin to assume you are right. Do some reading and research before you go all self-righteous on us, or it'll only lead to your own downfall.
RFSMITH
Thanbk you for liking my story but Nietzsche was evil. There nothing wrong with being self-righteosu so what if i can't spell his name why on earth do you want to support such a deeply evil man. So what if he was deep thking and even if he was 10 times more intelgent than us (althguiht i dount it) he was pure evil. Explain to me in any morally decent reasonging why anyone shouyld suport him. Thw onlt quotations i have read from hin idnciate he was the inteltual bass if the NAZI party there is hardly any evil the NAZIS committed that could not be supported by Nietzsche.
Stop going on baout speeling mistakes anmd typos we're not doing an essay for univesity where doing vague rantings like you are.
Thanks for being a fan of my story but tjhe wholke pint in the sort is to attack the views of Nietzsche. How can you like my story and then disagree with the whole basic satritical premise of the idea. Stop worring baout typing errors. You should tolrete typiong errors and be inmltenat of Nietzsche's evil views. To me Nietzsche jsut made some obvious observations like morality changes and then got to put forward his own evil views as if they were as obvious as saying sometimes people views change. I dont agree that evil makes lifemore fun there are mau ammortal ctions thah such as sport reading, etc that can give fun why should peopel be abused for other peoples pleasure just becaue it gives entretinament to someone. Stop seeing life as some game or other pels lives as entertainment. I dont see why i should be seen as having extrem views on moralty.
So what baout my typoing erros i;m not wrting an esaay you should be bale to work ot the erros it hsould improve your intlegence.
Henstoat
Mr. Smith, you must take a step back and rethink your position. To answer your queries, what is wrong with being self-righteous is that it's hypocritical, and hypocrisy is deeply unattractive. It is hypocritical because you yourself are a flawed creature, as are we all, and the tone with which you denounce Nietzche is one that denies this. It is the judgemental rages of a man who believes he is perfect. Now, I know you don't believe you're perfect, but that is the illusion you set to create when you so strongly condemn and denounce a fellow human being.
Why would I support the man? Firstly, I don't support him - I would have to read more of his writing before I offered my support. What I am doing is defending him against an absurd assault. There is no strain of logic or reason to support the suggestion that he is 'pure evil' - you are denying him the positive traits that all men and women possess (with the possible exception of psychopaths,) and are in fact claiming that he is something other than human. This is plainly ridiculous. As Sebastian noted above, it was a selectively quoted, edited and re-written Nietzche that supported Nazism, and these are the quotes you have been reading. Unless you have read his original works, and understood them, you are simply not in a position to judge.
I will not explain to you any morally decent reason for supporting him. I could, with a little rhetoric, but I believe moral decency is a sham, a method of justifying your condemnation or support something or someone when logic does not suffice. There are certainly logical reasons to *admire* Nietzche - he was intelligent, a progressive thinker and called into question the values that were taken for granted. My admiration extends towards anyone brave enough to call into question accepted values publicly and seriously.
As for spelling mistakes and typos, I know we're not writing University essays, but I ask you to type more clearly, because it makes your comments EASIER TO READ. I shouldn't have to read a sentence twice in order to have the faintest idea of what it's meant to mean. I don't feel it improves my intelligence either, although it is a fair exercise of my patience.
How can I like your story but disagree with the premise? Same way someone can like Nietzche but disagree with his premises. I can admire the articulation of thought, the technique, the honesty of a piece...without agreeing with it. Even something I *don't* like can be interesting and entertaining. Why else would I read the news?
Please don't tell me what I *should* do. If you think there is something I can do that would benefit myself or the rest of the world, tell me how and I will take it upon myself to decide whether or not I will do it. *Should* doesn't cut it - it verges on the bullying that you despise so ardently.
Latter parts of your post are just a repeat of your earlier points that no one - not even Nietzche - has disagreed with. There really is no need to tell us that people can have fun without abusing people, and it won't do anything to deter the people who do get their kicks doing so. If you want to put a stop to such offences, exercise tolerance and kindness towards all people. The effect of this will not be immediate, but if to make our society a more tolerant and understanding plain to exist in, even in your own small way, you are eroding the foundations on which hatred and crime are often built.
andrew pack
Afraid I agree with Henstoat on this - you can't come along and denounce Nietzche as pure evil and then remark that the only quotations you have read of his support the Nazi party. By the same token, the Nazi party used an awful lot of what Darwin had said, out of context and skewed to their own ends, but Darwin is not an evil man. I wouldn't say that I was a supporter of Nietzche but his philosphy is centred around the fact that in a world where God does not exist, man needs to define morals for himself and do things not because he might get in trouble in the afterlife but because there is some real sense in which things are right and wrong.
He was a philosopher, a thinker, he had a philosophy which he constructed - you can't critique that philosophy unless you take the care and the trouble to read it. If you don't like what you've seen so far and don't wish to read more, that's fine, but condemning someone on extracts is a very risky approach. Now, his sister was very involved in some unpleasant stuff and was responsible for most of the corruption of his beliefs.
I've read a bit of Nietzche, not a lot, but I have never seen anything from him to suggest that there are inferior races or that might ultimately equals right, or that extermination of selected people would be beneficial. What he was chiefly concerned with was the vacuum that the disappearance of God from society and what this would be filled with.
RFSMITH
The whole point in my story is saying look at the evils of natrual selection the NAZIS decided natural selection was a moral philosohpy, which is one of the reason they became so evil. Nietzche supported natrual selection as a moral philosophy. I have no idea whether Darwin supported natrual selection as better than good, but the fact is if people put strength above morality and breed out weakness, then they regard good as a weakness then you get an evil state. There are no logical reason to admire Nietzche he was evil. What a is progressive about being the intelectual basis for the evil NAZI party. I have never seen any progressive statements from him. It isn't liberal to support abuse and some so-called feminsits support him becaue they want to abuse people ot justfy an attraction to bad men. I support the basic principles of femisim of toyal gender eqailty and equal rights but when you get some femisnist suich as Fay Wledon trivlaisng rpae, it is pretty easy to see what side of the line they're on. I bet they use Nietzche to justy theire vil mindset. Some people find evil men attractive out of wanting to have children who inherit their evil perosnalty as they see it as a stength and my stroy satirises such people. Youc an suport someopne just becaue they are a philop[sher even when there views are vila nd leads to serouius evil abuses
Sebastian
No thinker today who had read him would suggest that Nietzsche was a Nazi, at least none that I have heard of. In fact judging by what I have read of him and his comments about other nationalistic leaders like Bismarck it is safe to say Hitler was the kind of man Nietzsche would have despised,
As for Anti-Semitism in "Beyond Good and Evil" there is an entire passage condemning its narrow mindedness and in "The Anti Christ" He says: "The Jews are the most remarkable nation of world history because, faced with the question of being or not being, they preferred, with perfectly uncanny conviction, being at any price" That is section 24 if you want to check it. If you still think he is an anti Semitic nazi then I don't no what else to tell you. It is clear that he is not. He even suggests that the he preferred the Jews to the Germans.
I'm not saying everything the man said I agree with, at times I cringe at his words but at the end of the day Nietzsche carries with him a great optimism and a challenge to us to think about every potentially foolish assumption we might make.
chant
"Nietzche supported natrual selection as a moral philosophy."
where?
"What a is progressive about being the intelectual basis for the evil NAZI party."
so what you are saying is that any person, including Christ, including yourself, whose words/name are misused by others in order to support a bad cause, is an evil person?
"I have never seen any progressive statements from him."
what statements HAVE you seen from him, exactly?
Henstoat
Mr. Smith, you don't appear to read much of what we are saying. You have failed completely to respond to the matter of your reading of Nietzche being utterly selective, and selected specifically for the purposes of apparently supporting Nazism. The fact that it convinces you that Nietzche was in favour of Nazism is merely a testament to the skills of the propoganda agents.
I put it to you again: you are not in a position to judge as you plainly have neither read, nor understood, much of what the man said.
And I repeat again what I have already said: I am not supporting Nietzche - when I have read more of him I may well take up that position, certainly if what Sebastian says is true. But for now, I am merely defending him against your unjust assault.
Your story does indeed satirize the natural tendency of people to admire strength and determination over good intentions - and you take such an attitude to its absolute extremes. For that reason, I found the world you created an interesting one. You are not, however, satirizing 'evil people' but a very common and natural tendency that is not even necessarily evil in itself. I would admire a person I disagreed with who was strong in their convictions and powers of reason over someone I agreed with who only held his opinions because he was afraid to consider anything else.
RFSMITH
You can rate my story 'Natrual selection' now. Hopefully this will get it up the rankings.
Nietzche was not simply being misquoted he was making evil statements
RFSMITH
Thta last statement of yours is morally wrong. How can yopu supoprt osmeone for being evil just becaeu theyh have considered all the options but have decdided to have strgn convtions. In my opinion supporting evil to me if someone decides to be evil after thinking out all the options it makes them even more evil. sTOP HTKING YOUR SOPSHITIECED FOR SUPPORTING EVIL PEOPLE
Sebastian
What evil statements? can you actually provide any with reference to his work? I'm sure there are certain remarks he made which most people (including myself) would disagree with but that doesn't mean that they are all evil. I worry that you haven't even conceded fractionally from your original position when so much evidence suggests you are mislead about a figure who is actual a victim of lies and abuse, and you have provide nothing vaguely solid to defend it.
John Locke suggested some quite strong (to put it politely) penalties for individuals who did not have religious faith. Does that mean we should deny all that he said? Should we dismantle the British and American Democratic systems that he was very much the father of? I pity a world in which we do follow such method.
RFSMITH
That last statement of yours is morally evil. How can you support someone for being evil just because they have considered all the options but have decided to have strong convictions. In my opinion supporting evil to me if someone decides to be evil after thinking out all the options it makes them even more evil. I can't see wjhy you peopel support Nietzche he was evil end of story.
Henstoat
It's called being in support of free speech, Smithy, and admiring intelligence over wilful, frustrating ignorance.
I don't think I'm sophisticated for supporting evil people, and I don't support evil people. I don't even believe in evil people. I have said, twice, that I am not supporting Nietzche in this thread. It is simply the case that intelligent people who have considered the options are more admirable. You can't change that, however morally wrong you think it is.
And get it into your head - Nietzche was not evil. You're the only person who believes that and you offer no one else any kind of proof or reasoning. You started off wrong, and now you're being a prat. Do what Chant says - offer up some evidence, some quotes. Or better yet, read Sebastian's quotes. Only a man who wilfully avoids any kind of reason could read them and still think Nietzche was a Nazi.
I find it extremely hypocritical of you that you expect me to be able to interpret the deluge of typing errors that make up your posts, yet you clearly DO NOT READ the more carefully composed posts of those who provide irrefutable evidence that your statements are a load of tosh.
RFSMITH
But he didnlt make any useful original statements. You seem to be very eager to back him up. Alot of people who suppoprt him supoort his more vil vierws abouit there being no such htinbg as moalrty to stop preople wanting to punihs them for theire evils. He is not liberal it is not liberla to support abuse. He made loads of evil statements.
andrew pack
Not sure that you are actually listening to any of the arguments here. As has been pointed out, the Nazi party used propaganda probably more successfully than anyone else before or since - they were interested in any justifications for what they did and took certain elements from philosophy and science to use for their own ends. If you genuinely believe that Nietzche would have supported the Nazis and what they were doing then you have swallowed that propaganda and are, I'm afraid, plainly and demonstrably wrong.
Natural selection is neither good nor evil, it is a fact. Human beings happen to be blessed with consciousness and intelligence and are therefore not prisoners of their genes, although genetic tendencies do still come into play.
I think there is a huge stretch between the Nazis were evil and used propaganda and philosophy and science to justify it and your stance which seems to be that particular philosophy and science was responsible for the Nazis being evil. To steal Chant's place for a moment (and I do so with fear as I am bound to get this wrong) post hoc, ergo prompter hoc is not always, indeed not often true.
The greater evil around the events of the 1930s and 1940s is not that the Nazi party existed, but that so many small, ordinary people allowed this to happen and turned a blind eye to what was actually happening. Nothing at all unusual in a few charismatic and powerful people going bad, but for so many to support and condone what they were doing is unparalleled. If you were looking for a proximate cause for the rise of Nazism, it would not be Darwin or Nietzche but the very oppressive peace settlement that was reached at the end of World War One and allowed a generation of Germans to grow up feeling that they had been marginalised and badly done to.
Henstoat
How do you know he didn't make any useful original statements?? Have you read everything he ever wrote? The quote above by Sebastian seems to me a *very* useful statement.
I haven't backed up anything he says. What I am eager to do is defend him against this damnation of yours, because your grounds for calling him evil are shaky at best, practically non-existent at worst.
If you want me to believe that he thought there was no such thing as morality, QUOTE HIM. Show me where he says that.
QUOTE these evil statements too. It's not good enough to just tell me he made them, Smith, because I just don't believe you. You offer no evidence! Where are all these vile statements you go on about? How does he support abuse? Give me Nietzche IN HIS OWN WORDS, not your skewed interpretation.
markbrown
I was in a second hand book shop in Lancaster once. Browsing through a big pile of old hardbacks I found a german edition of 'white fang' and 'call of the wild' by Jack London, bound in a cover with an embossed swastika on the front, meaning it was some kind of Nazi bookclub edition.
Does this, or does it not, make 'white fang' and 'call of the wild' evil, and by extension Jack London evil?
Sebastian
"But he didnlt make any useful original statements"
What!? He was the first thinker in the Western Tradition to doubt Aristotle’s law on non contradiction, one of the most fundamental assumptions that was at the basis of all philosophy and science for over 2000 years. Had he not challenged this theories like chaos theory, quantum theory and possibly even relativity would have been vastly different. Not to mention moral philosophy. If you assault Nietzsche’s rejection of morality you also have to assault the Buddha's rejection of it for he said much the same thing searching for an absence of suffering rather then a moral order, a fact that Nietzsche recognized.
Sebastian
That is to say the first western thinker in the post socratic world to question aristotle's law. My apologies to Heraclitus.
Henstoat
So then, Smith, are you all for the absence of suffering, or do you hate Nietzche to the extent where you think certain abuse and suffering is just fine so long as its morally decent? You're in a position which, if you choose to maintain it, completely contradicts itself. A rash suggestion, but could it be that to be anti-Nietzche is to be pro-suffering?
chant
so, to recap, you haven't read much of him:
"Thw onlt quotations i have read from hin idnciate he was the inteltual bass if the NAZI party."
but you can tell us with confidence that:
"he didnlt make any useful original statements."
you can't draw all-encompassing conclusions without having considered all the evidence.
since you're unwilling to support your conclusions with any textual evidence, i guess we'll have to look at what you believe to be the case about him.
"his more vil vierws abouit there being no such htinbg as moalrty"
no immoralist/ammoralist that i know of, including Nietzsche, has ever claimed that there is no such thing as morality. they might claim that morality is an institution, or, as Thrasymachus does in Book 1 of Plato's Republic, that it is employed by weaker men to hold down stronger men, or that it has no absolute foundations. but they would not claim that it did not exist, in itself, because if it did not exist then there would be no instances of it present in human life, which is clearly a position too weak to be sustained.
on to the man. according to you he was "the evil one", "he was pure evil". now, if he was pure evil, he would have been capable of no good actions. we might be surprised then, to learn that, on seeing a donkey which had collapsed in the street, and was being beaten by its master, he rushed over, put his arms round the donkey in a protective gesture and shouted "enough!"
'enough', coincidentally, is what i shall be shouting if you don't start producing some form of TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to support your claims.
RFSMITH
Stop being apologists for NAZI thinkers. The NAZIS did not choose Nietzsche by accident. He believed in their evil views. You must know he did. How can you know so much about him and then pretend he never made evil neo-NAZI remarks. I don't have any further access to e-mail so I won't be able to make any more statements. You can dismiss people who are the whole intelectual basis of the NAZI party. He was a philosoher. He wasn't some artist or an engineer his whole basis of fame is based on his evil philospphy.
Henstoat
You haven't read or understood a word WE'VE said, let alone Nietzche. You're completely blind.
Henstoat
Dammit, I've been missing out the 's'.
Sebastian
How could he be a Nazi or believe in their views? National socialism didn't come about until around three or four decades after Nietzsche was writing.
Henstoat
I don't think there's any point in saying so, Sebastian. You've already said it clearly enough, and Mr. Smith chooses to ignore everything that suggests, or in many cases proves that his thesis is a load of bilge.
Sebastian
Very true, I think you've hit the nail on the head.
chant
RFSMITH, as the Nazis proclaimed the Jews to be 'evil', so you have proclaimed Nietzsche to be 'evil'. as the Nazis insisted they were right without bothering to ground their argument in reason, so have you. as the Nazis refused to listen to counter-arguments, so have you. i think you need to be careful about this.
sirat
If you don't want to read the whole of Nietzsche, Mr. Smith, and heaven knows I wouldn't want to, you can find an excellent five-page summary of his writings and ideas in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy which is in just about every public library worthy of the name. It would take an hour or so of your time I think to absorb it properly, and then you would be in a slightly better position to argue whether or not some of his ideas might be seen as "underpinning" in some sense Hitler's National Socialism, which started about 25 years after Nietzsche's death in 1900. I think you can pick out bits that seem quite similar to Nazi ideas, if you want to, and indeed that is exactly what Hitler and the Nazi propagandists did, but if you look at what Nietzsche was actually trying to do it was something completely unrelated to what the Nazis were trying to do: in essence he was trying to put something (whatever shape it might have) in place of religion and traditional values which he believed to to be obsolete, no longer possible to take seriously. His philosophy is not simple-minded like the Nazi "philosophy", it needs a bit of application to understand what it's all about. Why not do just a little bit of homework and come back to the thread with some clearer thoughts?
andrew pack
An amazingly circular argument put forward - to whit :-
The Nazis got all their ideas from Nietzsche so he was evil. He was evil because he believed in the Nazis. His ideas were evil because he believed in the Nazis, and we can tell he believed in the Nazis, because his ideas were evil.
How on earth could he believe in the evil views of the Nazis, when he died thirty years before they were ever concieved of? If you mean that they shared some evil ideas, then you need to do what has been suggested many, many times on this thread and separate out the difference between "Nietzsche said this ...... and I agree says Hitler because....." and "Nietzsche said this..... and what that means is that he was in favour of Nazism". The two things are utterly different, and if you are unable to grasp that, then debating philosophy is perhaps not a good area for you to get involved in.
I'm not saying that you are utterly wrong, but you have had a chance to expand your arguments beyond the simplistic 'he is evil, therefore he is evil' level time and time again and you've spurned every chance. If you have a proper argument, then come out with it, otherwise simply accept that you made comments without any real basis in knowledge.
I'd respect, but disagree with someone who said "I've read a great deal of Nietzsche and consider him to be an evil man whose works were used by men of more evil to do terrible things" - but your view seems to be, I've heard he is linked to the Nazis, therefore he is evil. Much like holding Marx accountable for Stalin and Chairman Mao, only with even less justification.
Henstoat
As Mr. Smith has decided he has no further access to email, the observations of Chant and Sirat will have to be answered by our Smithomatic. So, Smithomatic, what do you say to that?
*The Smithomatic rumbles*
"wyh aer you dfenfing Ntieshce eh was veil! the ejws wer not evli thye wree abusde by tNchietchse he wasa NAZI who spoorted NAZIISM wtith his evel phlosiphoy Yoru statments are immorral You no Neiecthceieishsche was puer evo; why ar oyu deefendign his evil NAZI philosghiers like he hatted Jews nad throught wh9tes were speriuer."
There you are, gentlemen. Unfortunately, the Smithomatic does not yet write satires, but we're working on it.
dgl
I think the blanket statement bandied around earlier to wit: "Morality is not absolute" is not appropriate. The idea of morality being based on social mores and a workable system of interpersonal interaction changing with time is fine. Regardless of this, I believe that moral principles are not discreet packages of rigidly defined ethics, more that each represents a system to govern aspects of our behaviour. Moreover, if one aspect of our collective behaviour pattern changes, we should re-examine how the changed circumstances should affect our existing principles in related fields of social interaction. I think that at anyone time there are right and constructive, indifferent and destructive ways to behave in which we can either be nice or nasty to people. Therefore we can say that there ARE absolute morals. In some cases, as stated earlier, it is entirely ambiguous- but it is an over-extrapolation to say that this means that an absolute morality doesn't exist. Having read back over what I've just written and got bored, maybe I should stick to writing surreal little comedies.
iceman
markbrown: the swatstika on the spines of those books (which are probably quite old and predate the National Socialist Party's rise to power in the thirties) was just a symbol. I dont think it was a Nazi book club.
Henstoat
Indeed the swastika was used in ancient Japan, and features in the 'Blade of the Immortal' graphic novels - English/American additions have to have an explanitory note in the front to prevent people from thinking that the lead character, Manji, is a nazi.
DGL - You're getting into moral philosophy there - which has always been about absolute rights. I maintain that 'morality' (as in, what the word denotes today,) is used largely to justify unhelpful behaviour. Ibsen's 'Ghosts' was considered morally outrageous when it first appeared because it examined sexual diseases and the role of women. The matter of it's being morally offensive was nothing to do with what is really right and good, but about it making people feel uncomfortable with their own indulgence.